Racial Equity Initiative: 2022 Goals
Racial Equity Initiative Team • March 18, 2022
Mission
As a Matthew 25 congregation we commit to recognizing and dismantling racism and unconscious bias in our own hearts and minds, in the institution of the church, and in the broader culture. We will provide a space to process what we are seeing and learning and to discern our call as a community of faith to take action toward these goals. Our shared set of values and mission calls us to “transform lives for Christ:” that now calls us to transform our own lives to be less complicit in racist aspects of our culture, to transform the lives of those who have historically faced oppression by helping eradicate systemic racism disproportionately affecting them, and to be the hands and feet of Christ by opposing institutions and practices everywhere that deny the full humanity of all God’s children.
Vision
To be a faith community committed to anti-racist principles and practices, actively engaged in dismantling and repairing the harm caused by white supremacy and racial inequities.
2022 Goals
- Improve and increase communications and publicity about REI and community events
- Continue to learn and educate the community about the history of systemic racism and the skills to dismantle its effects in our church and society, and within ourselves.
- Form strong alliances with the
SF Black & Jewish Unity Coalition and the
Presbytery of SF West Bay Area Antiracism Group
A queer preacher takes on a notorious “clobber passage” and its history of pain and death. The sin of Sodom has nothing to do with same-sex marriage or trans children—and everything to do with willfully ignoring God's command to welcome strangers and practice hospitality. Let them know we are Christians by our love.
When I have offered hospitality, often I thought I was doing something kind for someone else. And I sometimes have tried to figure out how to get out of it, because it is work to welcome people in to your life. But it has almost always ended up being a much bigger gift to me than it might have been to the person I thought I was helping. God uses the people we meet and encounter in our lives to call us deeper into God's mystery of grace.
The Book of Acts continues the story began in the Gospel of Luke. The Good News of the Gospel is being taken to the ends of the Earth, because the Spirit is on the loose!
From being a movement of people who knew Jesus, and people who had heard him teach and speak, it grows. Exponentially.
From Jerusalem, to the rest of the Middle East, and then to Europe, Asia, and even San Francisco.
This is the Good News--that God's Spirit will not be limited or constrained.
How do we welcome and celebrate the differences that come with the Spirit's invitation? How does hospitality create, and re-create the church?
After the resurrection of Jesus, he walks with two men to a village called Emmaus. But his companions do not recognize who he is until they sit down and break bread with him. When have we walked with Jesus without even realizing it? How might we recognize Jesus in others and in the world?
At the start of Lent, the children 'buried' an alleluia in worship. We put the word away during a season. On Easter, we bring it back.
On the first Easter morning, the women went to the tomb, assuming their alleluias were going to stay buried forever. Their rabbi was dead. Their hopes and dreams, buried with him.
An encounter with the angels in the empty tomb makes them reconsider what they thought they knew of death, of endings.
Maybe you've buried a lot of your hopes and dreams recently too. What might the Easter story have to say to us anew this year?
Calvary's 7am Easter Service
As Jesus enters Jerusalem, he is greeted by raucous crowds. It is a celebration of him. It is also a counter protest to Rome. The crowds have gathered and are crying out "hosanna", which means "save us".
Save us from injustice. Save us from cruelty. Save us from crushing poverty.
Jesus does not silence the crowds. And he responds to their cries by weeping over Jerusalem and by turning over tables in the Temple.
It is easy these days to say who we are against. Maybe it has always been easy to do so.
What is harder is to create space for people to change their minds, change their views, change their behavior.
As Jesus approaches Jerusalem, he stops in Jericho and accepts an invitation to eat at the home of someone who society wanted to cancel.
How can the story of Zacchaeus help us give space for each other?
The Good Shepherd calls home all of the sheep, even "those" sheep. No matter how far you've wandered, no matter who has tried to separate you from God's fold, Jesus is waiting. It's time for a homecoming.
Jesus continues his journey to Jerusalem and his disciples ask him a question as they walk. They want him to answer the questions we always want God to answer for us too—why do bad things happen to good people?
Join us as we consider Jesus' answer to the question.